Dreams

Dreams of Life? Dreams of the Night?

I had a curious weekend which ended with dreams about frustrating travels ... aborted attempts at getting somewhere. LQiM (Laughing Quietly inside Myself) ... Where does the Last Quarter end? Ooops. Maybe better not to end those dreams.

Heard three talks, this weekend.

Friday night, a Canadian spoke of the need to distinguish the mental functions Conscience rooted in Love  from a Punitive Guilt-based way of approaching the World based in Hate. He had me at word one. If only he stopped there but he went on talking ... and talking ... and talking. Used a lot of Big Words that don't resonate well with my aging brain and fail to tickle my aging mind. The speaker was a Mid-Fourth-Quarter resident.

The second speaker talked of his very personal notions of the Good/Godly life and how he had earlier in his life was moved to avoid ritual while now the deeds themselves carry the day.  This speaker lived Mid-Third-Quarter.

The last two speakers were discussing a lost-but-recently-found Training Film that Gene Kelly did for Army in 1946 on what were called War Neuroses in WWI, Combat Fatigue in WWII and the film, and that we now call PTSD. . A Mid-Fourth-Quarter fellow whom I admire spent most of his time presenting a biography of the Dancer/Actor/Director. By the end of this bio, M was about to kick me for bringing her to hear a biography. I was lost in rage at the idea of sending our kids to war and then treating them as either malingerers who need to be rehabilitated to go back for some more (WWI) or as sick folk who hadn't been resilient enough (one audience participant hinted at that) to endure the Fog of War. By the end of the Bio, I was feeling a combination of deep sadness and horror. I kept thinking of the youngsters sent, the spouses and lovers left behind, and the kids growing up at the hands of these soldier boys-returned-home. The story of Agamemnon and Jepthah who went to war only to come home wishing to sacrifice their kids kept coming into my head. How would we like our Boys and Girls to coime home from waging our crazy representative wars, ie, wars where we have our kids go out and fight for us.

There was a fourth speaker ... second at the film. She was a Second Quarter (maybe early Third) Psychologist who had worked with soldiers for more than ten years. I asked her how one deals with one's own sense, if present, in the immorality of war, especially if sharing this with Veteran patients was a two edged sword. I knew in her position, it would be reasonable for her to answer. I left wishing that the refreshments for the film had included some Prozac or a shot of Brandy ... Oops ... I can't drink!

In the end, it was only the second speaker who talked of the value of doing (for him? prayer) that touched me in a way that made the weekend's intellectual fare seem sustaining of life.

No wonder my dream-travels never made it to the end of the line ... where a rich dinner might be served!

I should've spent the weekend gardening!